Of Secrets
by littleblackdog
Summary: “How much can a person regret before it consumes them?” The silence was heavy and tense, and for a moment she considered that Zevran might have simply walked away. -- Outside Castle Redcliffe, Lady Aeducan grieves for what might have been. Mid-game.


_AN: I hope this story makes sense outside the realm of my other work "Of Steel and Stone." It was meant to be a chapter of that, but then Zevran happened, and the rating went up. It didn't feel right to raise the rating of the larger work for one chapter with sex, so here it is separately. Briefly, Fem!Aeducan is currently skirting around the beginnings of a relationship with Alistair (he's already given her the rose), while struggling with her own feelings about a great many things.  
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_For those who read "Of Steel and Stone," this can be read as a standard chapter, or a redux. I'm not labelling it, because honestly I'm not sure. And remember: sex, and Zevran.  
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"So tell me, my exquisite Warden—" Zevran was lounging beside where she sat, watching her with a definite air of intent as she warmed her hands by the fire. He was splayed out like a lizard on a rock. "I have regaled you with tales of Antiva, but what of your homeland? Would you tell me of the great halls of Orzammar?"

After the reaction that had followed his recent inquiry about her caste, she could tell he'd considered this question risky. Yet still he asked.

It had been nearly two weeks since her ill-fated meeting with Gorim in Denerim, and her pieces had finally started to knit back together; she was feeling nostalgic, and still a little raw around the edges, so she indulged the elf.

"What would you like to know, Zevran? Orzammar is one of the most awe-inspiring places in the whole of Thedas, or so visitors often tell the dwarves who live there." She stretched, then lay down on her side, enjoying both the fascinated expression on the elf's face and the way the flames warmed her bent legs. She didn't object when Zevran shifted about as well, reclining beside her at a less than respectable distance, and it was suddenly a little like lying in bed with someone again, if the bed were outside and made of lumpy grass. She thought of Gorim, and sighed.

"You miss your home as well, I see," Zevran murmured, and she didn't correct him. It was true enough. "We could speak of something else, if you prefer. Or we could… not speak." It was late enough that the camp was quiet around them, though not late enough that they had no chance of an audience whatsoever. Still, she allowed Zevran to stroke his long, slender fingers along her arm, stopping where her hand was pillowed under her cheek. The loneliness she'd tried to conquer was threatening to overwhelm her, and she brushed her lips across Zevran's knuckles without thinking.

She nearly put a stop to the whole thing when his face was suddenly so close to hers and his eyes so dark and hot, but she could almost smell Gorim through the spice and the wrongness of the elf. His thumb was brushing gently over her mouth, sending shivers down low in her belly, and then his lips were on her jaw, trailing fire there.

There was nothing floral about the scent of either man— not the one in her mind, nor the one nearly in her arms. Yet, unexpectedly, she was reminded of roses.

"It is splendour and strength carved into the very Stone," she said, keeping her tone steady as she pushed Zevran away. He did not resist, retreating across the grass with an unwavering smile, but he kept his fingers caressing her arm. "You would like it, I think, if for no other reason than because it is dry and gloriously warm."

"Mmmmm," Zevran purred, and she knew the promise of pleasure held within in it was deliberate. She couldn't quell her small shudder at the sound. "You and I, my dear, we are not made for this dismal country."

"It has its charms," she answered carefully, hearing the deeper layers of his flirtation. "As I am discovering."

He laughed then, turning onto his back and folding his hands on his flat stomach. "Oh, certainly." She stifled the pang of regret she suffered from the loss of his touch. This assassin was dangerous, and she was wallowing in her lingering grief. She could not allow this to happen.

Then later, camped outside the ravaged and nearly abandoned town of Redcliffe, with Alistair's confession still rattling around in her head, she allowed too much.

She'd been outwardly calm and understanding— who was she to judge someone for keeping secrets— but she'd thought Alistair trusted her more than that (_more than you trust him_, her treacherous mind provided). She was certain Alistair did not suspect how bothered she actually was, and that may have been her first mistake.

They managed to steal a few precious hours of rest after the final attack of corpses, but before they began to consider how to approach the castle. She was exhausted— drained physically and emotionally— but she could not quiet her mind.

This burning betrayal eating away at her— was _this_ what awaited Alistair when she was finally forced to admit her own parentage? Was this what her silence, her continued silence, would do to him?

She hated herself for her weakness, because she knew she'd missed such a perfect opportunity to confess her own secret, and also because she _knew_ she'd stay silent still. It was not a vast distance to walk around the fire and sit next to the obviously pensive man, but her feet would not cross it.

She was truly weak, and cruel. The first had led to her exile, and the second had led to her loneliness. It had been weak and utterly stupid to believe Bhelen at his word, the vicious _tezpadam_, and if she hadn't been so selfish and so cruel, Gorim… Gorim might have waited for her. Wasn't love meant to conquer all, or was that only in the kinds of soppy topsider tales Leliana regaled her with? In dwarven tales, duty and honour always came first, and the salvation of a kingdom was valued far higher than any fleeting affections of the hero.

She was a second child— her father already had an heir, and if she'd stepped aside and not allowed her pride to thrust her into seeking the hearts of Orzammar and the favour of the Assembly, would her life have been so terrible? She could have blended in rather than stood out, and she could have convinced Gorim they truly did have a future together. Sod the throne, and the propriety of it all. She loved Gorim, and she would have been proud to give him a son… a beautiful boy with his father's character and loyalty, and his mother's grace and strength, who would have been the greatest warrior in a generation.

It was heartbreaking that such insight had only come to her after all this. After everything had been set down such a painful path.

"Why so morose, sweet Warden?" She didn't jump at the quiet voice behind her; she'd heard a stone shift under a too-light foot a moment before. Her eyes did not stray from staring up at the seemingly peaceful castle in the pre-dawn gloom. "Thanks to your leadership, and no small amount of sheer luck, the village seems to have survived the night."

Possibly the exhaustion was to blame, but she listened to her next words escaping her mouth without her conscious control. "How much can a person regret before it consumes them?"

The silence was heavy and tense, and for a moment she considered that Zevran might have simply walked away. Then she felt warm fingers brush her filthy, sweaty hair away from her neck, and she shuddered.

"Quite a lot," came the strangely monotone response, and it was unclear whether Zevran was speaking from bitter observation or experience.

She dropped her voice to the breath of a whisper, latching on to a sliver of doubt that perhaps he would not hear her. "I'm going to pretend to retire to my tent, and then sneak into the woods just south of camp. If you meet me there, we will _never_ speak of this again."

It was exactly as difficult to slip away from camp as it should have been, and she was pleased with her companions' vigilance. Still, they were more concerned with what might try to sneak in, rather than out, and in very little time she was slithering around dark foliage, moving deep enough into the forest that the feeling of camp faded into solitude. She stopped beside a particularly large, rough-barked tree and sat between its massive roots, purposefully breaking small twigs between her fingers. If Zevran were coming, he would find her easily.

Once again she heard his footsteps before she saw him, but in this instance it was obviously intentional. He crunched through the brush, and she climbed to her feet just in time to be pushed against the trunk at her back, gasping as strong, forceful hands slid up her ribs, lifting her onto the tips of her toes, and her mouth was captured in a violent kiss.

Digging her fingers into the leather at his shoulders, she ignored the sharp pain as the armour resisted the pressure. Her own leathers protected her back from the coarse bark of the tree, for which she was only vaguely grateful as a surprisingly sturdy, utterly _male_ body ground her hard against it. She tilted her head, encouraging the kiss to go deeper and harder, and when their teeth clicked together she moaned. There was the barest hint of copper in her mouth, and she thought she might have split his lip.

Quicker than even she could do so, he had her leathers unbuckled and tossed aside. She pressed into the hand that cupped her breast through her tunic, feeling her nipples begin to ache as they hardened. They were barely kissing anymore, panting into each other's mouth, biting and growling as they writhed together.

He wore no leggings under his own armour, and she grinned ferally as she reached down to scrape her blunt nails up his bare thigh. He cursed harshly, jerking his hips as she found her prize, pressing the heel of her hand against his straining cock. Then her leggings were shoved down to her knees, and when two of his fingers thrust inside her, she found she could not catch her breath.

She was keening like a desperate, wounded animal as he worked her hard, his whole arm moving fast and mercilessly. When his thumb began to circle and flick, she clawed at his chest, arching against the pressure and the jolts of molten heat.

When she slid down the trunk, he followed, abandoning his ministrations to yank her thigh and pull her prone between the tree roots. She cried out at the loss of him, but then he was above her, bearing down on her, and then gloriously inside her.

There was passion, if not an excess of tenderness, in the way his hips snapped against hers, and she realised he hadn't even tried to undress except to pull his smallclothes out of the way. The metal tips of pteriges scraped as they slid along her belly, and she remembered the harsh, cold feel of Gorim's armour when she'd clung to him through the bars of her prison cell.

She sobbed once, noiselessly, but despite every ounce of effort she possessed, she could not control the flood of gasping and weeping that overtook her. She was blubbering like a child, tears streaming down the sides of her face and dripping onto the grass, and Zevran's hips stuttered to an awkward stop. His hand was on her face, wiping at moisture and trying to turn her to look at him, but she couldn't, couldn't _speak_—

His arms came around her, lifting her limp, pathetic body up and into an embrace. She kept sobbing, burying her face into his chest as he sat up, cradling her with an amount of compassion that would shock her later. She felt empty, cavernous and cold, and not simply because they were no longer joined together. She could feel him, still half-hard against her thigh, but he seemed to be ignoring his own need in favour of cooing soft, foreign phrases into her hair.

True to her word, she never spoke of that night again. And, only a few days later when Alistair bent down into their first sweet, awkward kiss, clutching his mother's amulet like it might shatter in a stray gust of wind, she forgot about the taste of copper and the burning of her tears.


End file.
